Blog Challenge: New (Year’s) Resolution Mechanic

I issue a challenge to YOU and ye to all bloggers! In the dawning light of 2024, you must come up with a New Year's Resolution. But I’m not talking about your typical forbearance from vices or oaths to lift weights. I’m talking something way more important: Resolution Mechanics.

I intend to keep this post short and sweet (as an indication that this challenge is no great commitment), so if you want exhaustive treatises on resolution mechanics, you can look to my own recent defense of the blackjack roll under method or Goblin Punch’s exhaustive (but never exhausting) review of resolution mechanics in general.

My challenge is thus: In January 2024, come up with a new resolution mechanic for a TTRPG and give it a name. It doesn’t need to be good (in fact, most the good ones have probably already been taken). It just needs to be new! You don’t need to plan to use it in your games; it can be absolute detritus for you. But one blogger’s trash is another designer’s treasure. You never know how great an impact one throwaway idea on a blog might have.


List of Entries:

  1. “2 Roll 2 Under” from Prismatic Wasteland (see below)

  2. 2 Stats 2 Rolls” from Binary Star Games

  3. Squeeze Your Skills” from Dice Goblin

  4. Drama Debt” from @ianwaprice

  5. The Dice Is Right” from Kurt Potts

  6. Calling Cards” from @poondonkus

  7. Lowlife Dice” from Gem Room Games

  8. Davy Jones’ Bidding” from Illusory Sensorium

  9. Dice & Deck” from @DetournementArc

  10. Snake Eyes Special” from @WuDeRpg

  11. The Quantum Die” from Dice Bob

  12. 50-50 Resolution” from Traverse Fantasy

  13. Free Resolution” from Fuzz Dungeon

  14. Don’t Roll 13” from PelleP

  15. Buy the Boost(TM)” from Mindstorm

  16. Left-to-Right Resolution” from Mindstorm

  17. “Green Means Go” from Mindstorm

  18. Any Two System” from Dorklord Canada

  19. Spoon Pool” from @mahercbeaucoup

  20. Third Die Blind” from Suppressed Transmission

  21. Consequence Jam” from Indre Auge

  22. Zoom” from Grim Tokens

  23. The Push System” from DigitalWasteOf.Space

  24. Blackjack?” from Herington Press

  25. Weird Hazards” from Roll to Doubt

  26. New Wisdoms for New Worlds” from A Most Majestic Fly Whisk

  27. The Pouch of Peril” from The Dododecahedron

  28. D6 Tokens” from Bogblins

  29. Cheating the Devil” from Floriks Fantastereien

  30. Pog Mechanics” from Wayspell

  31. Basketball Hoop” from Virtual Moose

  32. Add and Roll d20 Under” from Bunnies and Bagels

  33. Milking Your Dice” from Fail Forward

  34. MANIFEST” from Fail Forward

  35. Overflow” from FARLSTHEGM

  36. Drinkin’ the Game Away” from Archons March On

  37. Copenhagen Positioning aka Schrödinger's Resolution” from Alone in the Labyrinth

  38. Twist” from Arcane Atlas Games

  39. Russian Roulette” from Table Top Rocket Propelled Grenade

  40. Hand to Hand” from Velocimancer Games

  41. How Much Did It Mean to You?” from Velocimancer Games

  42. We Live in a Society” from Velocimancer Games

  43. Slipjack” from Differently Sane

  44. The Flame Imperishable” from Rise Up Comus

  45. White Snow, Red Blood” from mushrevolutionary

  46. Taking Your Time” from A Knight at the Opera

  47. “1, 2, Maximise” from Pointless Monument

  48. Dice-based Trick-taking from sean f. smith

  49. Grasping at Straws” from Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet

  50. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work” from Idraluna Archives

  51. KUP ARC” from VI VII X KUP

  52. Tarot Blackjack” from Technicolor Dream Drake

  53. Sword Slash to the Chest, and You're on Fire” from Jackalope Mail

  54. Precision, Ascent, Grit, Effort” from TheGiftOfGabes

  55. Any Ability Allowed” from O lar do xogón

  56. Another Way to Do It” from simone cittadini

  57. Clashing” from Benign Brown Beast

  58. D6.5 Resolution” from COPPERS AND BOARS

  59. NEVER Play with Matches” from Tales from the Lamp

  60. Resolving a Dungeon” from Organic Memory Device

  61. “Scale Dice” from Being an Asshole to Goblins

“2 Roll 2 Under”, the Sequel to Roll Under

My New Year’s Resolution Mechanic assumes D&D-esque ability scores, ranging from 3-18 (or even as far as 20). Whenever a character attempts something risky or uncertain, they roll 2 dice and add them together. If the sum of those dice is lower than their applicable ability score, they succeed. If it is higher or equal to their ability score, then they fail.

The twist is the size of the dice. That depends on the difficulty of the task. The referee determines if it is Trivial, Easy, Moderate, Hard or Extreme. The player rolls 2d6 for Trivial, 2d8 for Easy, 2d10 for Moderate, 2d12 for Hard and 2d20 for Extreme.

That’s all that you need to do for this challenge! I will include links to all participants down below. This next part is a little extra, but I wanted to test out the statistics behind this completely jury rigged mechanic. So I am going to compare two characters, one with a middling ability score (10) and one with a quite good score (16) in both this rule and 5e’s resolution mechanic.

Difficulty5e Odds of Success2 Roll 2 Under Odds of Success
TrivialAverage Dude: 80%; Talented Dude: 95%Average Dude: 83.33%; Talented Dude: 100%
EasyAverage Dude: 55%; Talented Dude: 70%Average Dude: 56.25%; Talented Dude: 98.44%
ModerateAverage Dude: 30%; Talented Dude: 45%Average Dude: 36%; Talented Dude: 85%
HardAverage Dude: 5%; Talented Dude: 20%Average Dude: 25%; Talented Dude: 68.75%
ExtremeAverage Dude: 5%; Talented Dude: 5%Average Dude: 9%; Talented Dude: 26.25%

A Twist to the Challenge

The mechanic must be new, obviously, but I don’t expect you do to an exhaustive search to ensure that no one else has ever thought of using dice in that way before. But as an enforcement mechanism, if anyone comments on your post and shows that some other game uses that resolution mechanic, (1) cool, you just discovered a new game! And (2) you must either give that commenter a shout out in your next post, let them suggest a topic for you to post about, or otherwise give them plaudits.

The 2023 Bloggies

Blog challenges are only one way to celebrate the vibrant blogging scene in TTRPGs! Another is the Bloggies, awards for excellence in blogging, which are this year being hosted by Zedeck Siew. The shortlist just got announced! And voting is happening via Google Forms, with a link on Zedeck’s blog but also linked on twitter, bluesky (I’ve generally been retweeting them, if you are having trouble locating the day’s voting). Go vote! Go read blogs! Then design your new resolution mechanic.

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